At the time of writing, a tweet by Maezawa had racked up more than 4.5 million retweets, outstripping Wilkerson by more than a million. The post is a celebration of Maezawa’s clothing company, Zozotown, making 10 billion yen ($US92 million) in sales over Christmas and New Year’s.

Maezawa, however, is operating with two major advantages. First, he is already a public figure with over 5 million followers, whereas TechCrunch reports that Wilkerson only had 138 followers when his nugget appeal went viral.

Second – and perhaps most tellingly – Maezawa offered a financial incentive for people to retweet. He has promised to share 100 million yen ($US923,000) among 100 randomly selected people who retweeted him.

Business Insider has contacted Twitter to ask about its policy regarding gambling on the platform.